She’d married the man who destroyed her first love, the man who broke her heart in ways she never recovered from. No wonder she’d faded so quickly after that. No wonder the light in her eyes had died.
I can barely breathe around the ache in my chest.
I drag my suitcase off the bed and onto the floor. Every sound feels too loud—the rasp of the zipper, the thud of the handle hitting the wood. I half expect Alexei to burst through the door any second to try to explain or tell me it’s not what it sounds like.
But he doesn’t.
The silence presses heavier with every passing second. A small, cruel part of me expected him to come after me. Another part—one I hate even more—is disappointed that he hasn’t.
Maybe he’s relieved I’m leaving. Maybe it’s easier for him this way.
The thought makes my throat sting. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, furious at myself for crying.
Enough. No more tears.
I call for a car, shove my coat on, and head downstairs. As I walk down the long stairs, through the large living room, I can almost feel the walls closing in on me…
In this very house, my mama was murdered.
Soon enough, I'm settling into the back seat of the taxi, and it finally feels like I can breathe a little.
“Where to, ma’am?” the driver asks.
“JFK. Please.”
As the car begins to move, I lean back in the seat and close my eyes with a shaky sigh. The only person I can think of at this moment is Katya. My sister will know how to make it better—make this pain that's eating at me go away…
I need her. And she also needs to know the truth.
Soon, I'm standing at the kiosk in the airport, waiting for the plane ticket to LA to be printed. For a second, I almost laugh at how easy it is to disappear.
One credit card. One suitcase. One broken heart. That's all it takes.
By the time I board, my eyes burn from unshed tears and exhaustion, but sleep won’t come. Neither will the tears. I pull out my phone as the flight attendant makes the final boarding call, my fingers hovering over the screen for a second before I start typing.
I’m coming to you. I’ll explain everything when I get there.
I stare at the message for a moment, my thumb trembling over “send,” then hit it. Katya replies almost instantly:
What happened? Are you okay?
I can’t bring myself to answer. Not yet.
The truth is too big, too sharp.
I switch my phone to airplane mode just as the plane begins to taxi and sink back into the seat.
The engines roar beneath me, the cabin trembles, and I stare out the small oval window as New York disappears beneath a wash of city lights and clouds. My chest tightens.
How did everything unravel so fast?
The past few days had felt…almost perfect. Alexei had been different, gentler, deliberate in the way he looked at me, touched me, listened to me. For the first time in years, I felt safe. Wanted. Like we could actually move past the last four years.
I didn’t even realize when it happened, when the careful distance I’d built around myself began to crumble.
When I started to trust him.
When I started to love him.
